


Tales from the Arcana Institute

by OopsIAccidentally



Category: Original Work, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Nox Arcana, it's a tma au of my d&d group!, pcs are avatars, random npcs are statement givers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:27:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22620988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OopsIAccidentally/pseuds/OopsIAccidentally
Summary: Original PC: Devon Petros, half-elf warlock of the fiendEntity: The LonelyWarnings:
Kudos: 1





	1. Made of Mist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original PC: Devon Petros, half-elf warlock of the fiend  
> Entity: The Lonely  
> Warnings:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA


	2. Starting Fires

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original PC: Fainn Nil, water genasi trickster cleric of Beshaba  
> Entity: The Desolation  
> Warnings: Arson

_ Statement of Alexandros Spyridon, on a fire near his childhood home. Original statement given April 3rd, 2018. Audio recording by Victor Vallakovich, head archivist of the Arcana Institute, London.  _

_ Statement begins. _

I used to love the winter. We all have those fond memories of going on sledding trips with your parents, or drinking hot chocolate with your friend after an hours long snowball fight. I was raised in Maine, so we had snow constantly in the winter to enjoy. We also used to take trips at least once every December, if not more often, to go see my relatives here in Britain. We would go on ski trips sometimes and shopping trips more often, and my cousins would love to pull me into pranks on our parents. I loved winter, but now I can't stand it. The feeling of snow, the chill that settles on my shoulders and in my limbs, it… fills me with dread, I guess I would describe it.  _ Why _ , exactly, is what this statement is about: It's about my childhood friend and what happened when she disappeared.

My best friend growing up was a girl named Fainn. She was living at the orphanage, The Weave and Moon Orphanage, that was just down the block from my house. We were placed next to each other in our maths class when I first moved and just hit it off, since we were 12 and it was just so easy to be friends. She was quiet at first, really withdrawn, but pretty soon she opened up and we became the best of friends.

She never liked to talk about it, but I could tell that she wasn't treated especially well at the orphanage. Mostly by the other kids, they loved to pick on her because they knew the caretakers wouldn't believe her, but with how more often than not she would come to school with barely any lunch and always had some sort of bruise on her arms, I seriously doubt the integrity of the orphanage's care. She never talked about it, though, just came over to my house as often as she was allowed. She never took me inside the place, absolutely refused to. She seemed to put up with it well, but, well, hindsight is 20/20. Everything was going to boil over eventually.

I remember something that happened a few days before the actual incident. It was the winter of 2011, Fainn and I were fifteen. We were walking home one day, a few days before winter break, when she started talking about something  _ weird _ . She told me she met some people a few days before, admitting that she snuck out of the orphanage at night to go see a midnight movie showing. Apparently they had pulled her away from the show and told her that she had been called to by some weird fictional god they thought was real. According to them she had been promised great powers if she did  _ something _ for this god, though what exactly was asked she never told me.

I was skeptical. I mean, that just sounds weird, right? Super sketchy, probably some sort of con or, even worse, a kidnapping scheme. But Fainn didn’t see it like that. She was  _ elated _ , smiling bigger than I had ever seen before. She told me that everything they told her was true, that she had always known about this god but never told anyone else after she had been punished when she was younger for “listening to it’s call”. But now, with this, she could finally do, and I quote, “what she was meant to do”. She told me this because she wanted me to come help her, to join her in this scam.

I refused. Of course I refused, why on Earth would I accept? I told her absolutely not, that she shouldn’t fall for whatever those  _ complete strangers  _ were saying, and she got furious. She shouted, almost screamed at me, about how we had promised to stay with each other no matter what and that this was breaking that trust. She said she thought I was different than everyone else, and if I didn’t do this then I wouldn’t be able to prove her wrong. I refused still, and Fainn stormed off with tears in her eyes. 

She refused to speak to me for the days between that fight and the actual incident, didn’t even look me in the eye when I went out of my way to talk to her. It began to snow hard in the days in between, and before Fainn would have dragged me out for hours on end after school to play in the field behind the orphanage. But at that time, she would only leave school and head towards downtown, where she had met this weird group. I never tried to follow her, but I can’t help but wonder what I would have seen if I did.

It stayed that way until winter break came, and then… it happened. I woke up one night to sirens speeding down our road. Fire trucks, specifically, stopping near where the Weave and Moon Orphanage was. Almost immediately a feeling that something terrible happened made my stomach drop and had me out of bed, running out and down the street without even grabbing a coat. I can still feel the snow pelting my face like little bullets, my face and fingers slowly losing feeling as I ran through the snow down the street towards an inferno.

That was one of the worst fires in Maine’s recent history, at least in terms of body count. According to all accounts no survivors were rescued, the firefighters unable to stop the fire from the outside or get in to get the people out. The doors had been locked and barred from the inside, the windows on the first floor too small for anyone to crawl through. 78 people, kids and adults, were burned alive that night, some in their sleep and some unfortunately awake and just unable to escape. The only thing they could do was to keep the fire contained and keep trying, even if nothing came from it in the end. 

All  _ I  _ could do was watch. The cold seemed to leak into my limbs, my bloodstream, kept me locked in place no matter how much I didn’t want to see. Snow landed on me, weighed down on my shoulders and started to melt through my hair. I couldn’t even make myself brush it off. The only thing I could do was watch as the orphanage burned, then crumbled in on itself, sending enough sparks to make a firework up into the grey winter sky. The only thing I could do was watch as my best friend burned to death.

My parents came eventually, carried me back home and comforted me as the shock wore off and I couldn’t stop bawling. I didn’t sleep that night, only listened as the sounds of the fire and the efforts to put it out slowly died out. It ended around 3 in the morning, when the fire wasn’t in danger of starting back up, the fire brigade was cleared to leave, and those that were still watching left to go back to their beds. My parents were back asleep by then, holding onto each other as they slept on the couch.

Something called me back outside, in the silence that followed everyone leaving. Maybe it was just the need to see that it was real, that I hadn’t just dreamed such a terrible thing happening. Maybe it was something else. Either way I still crawled out my bedroom window and made my way back towards the wreck, still setting off a thick plume of black smoke and ash into the sky. 

As I trudged my way through the snow, which had lightened from a flurry to just a light storm that melted as it landed on me, I came close enough to see the corner of where the orphanage used to stand and heard laughing. It was quiet, muffled but strangely clear, accompanied by the sound of something being shifted through. I don’t know why I did, but I picked up my pace, awkwardly slipping my way to see the entire wreck.

What I saw wasn’t nearly as drastic as when I first saw the fire, no flaming monolith or hellish death house. Just timbers and smoke, nothing even close to catching a spark again. But in the ruins, revealed when a gust of wind that went straight through my pyjamas cleared the smoke, was a group of people. They all wore complete black, some in hoodies and a few in just long-sleeves. There were a few stray ones picking their way through the mess, while a more condensed group was situated near the center of the wreck. A large figure, their face obscured by a hood, propped up a still smoking beam with bare hands, as if the heat it had to be emitting was nothing. Underneath a few of the figures were on their knees, sifting through the ashes as the laughter became more and more audible. Suddenly a sharp whistle split through the night, and those that were making their way away from the group turned around and returned, heads ducked and hands stuffed in pockets.

I watched as one of the group, the one who whistled, grabbed something and began pulling. Another reached out and tried to help, only to recoil, cradling their hand as if hurt. Slowly, from where I stood, an arm became visible, then a body, naked but quickly covered with a spare jacket. Long white hair obscured the face, but it was very obviously the source of the laughter as its entire frame shook from barely repressed sound. It’s back was turned to me, but I heard the laughter subside as it seemed to ask the person who pulled it out of the wreck a question, getting a nod in return. The person picked the body up, saying something to the rest of the group before they turned around and I saw what exactly was born from the fire.

It was Fainn. At least, it wore Fainn’s face. Her hair, once a deep chestnut brown, had been seared into a pure white, looking as if it was made of ash. All across what was once her skin, branching up across her cheeks to reach closed eyes, were strange, glowing lines. It looked like there was nothing but an inferno inside her, no blood or flesh. Only fire. As soon as the snow landed on her skin it sizzled and popped, reaching the boiling point and turning to steam upon contact. Then it opened its eyes, zeroing in on me across the wreck with inhuman, chilling blood red eyes, and… it smiled. It’s chest began to hiccup as it’s laughter, sounding exactly like Fainn’s, started up again, this time as if at my expense. It fell limp in it’s carrier’s grip, head lolling back, and as I watched in horror its skin began to run and drip like heated beeswax, dripping down into the ashes below. It’s skull became exposed, the smile disappearing to only show bared teeth as the laughter continued uninterrupted.

None of the group noticed me, or at least if they did they didn’t do anything about it. They just walked across the field and disappeared into the thin strip woods that marked the end of the orphanage’s property. The laughter slowly faded as they left, but that thing never looked away from me. They took whatever Fainn had become and vanished. 

I just stood there until it began snowing even harder than before and I was forced to either leave or lose my toes. I started going to a therapist at my parent’s request, though I never told any of them what exactly happened when I went back. We eventually moved here, so my mom could be closer to her family, and I went on with my life. I graduated top of my class and I’m going to uni right now for a major in theology. I had started researching any mention of the strange god Fainn had talked about, and even though nothing has come of it yet there must be some mention of this god, this Lightless Flame, somewhere in the world. I’ll be the one to find it. Everything was going great, I had thought.

But something happened recently, and I needed to let this story out. It felt like it was eating me up, or that if I didn’t tell someone then it’d come out in a random conversation and I wouldn’t be able to stop it. Then I heard about this place, and knew this was the perfect place. I’d get it out, get back to a normal life, and my statement would just be filed away with the rest of the crazies you guys must get statements from.

I got a letter. That’s what happened. I got a letter from Fainn-- from  _ it _ . I’m giving it with the rest of my statement, I don’t want it. If I keep it my girlfriend will find it, or I’ll get driven insane from pure paranoia. It’s better here with you folks.

_ Statement ends. _

_ There is a letter attached to this statement. It reads:  _ Don’t forget about me. My fire still burns bright, Alexandros.  _ It’s only signed by the letter F, but apparently this is enough evidence for Mr. Spyridon to assume it’s from this Fainn. _

_ Other than this unhelpfully cryptic note, follow-up is rather easy. The Weave and Moon Orphanage Fire of 2011 in Waterville, Maine is a well documented tragedy. 79 people, both the wards of the orphanage and those in charge, were killed. Their bodies were recovered and showed no signs of foul play. No signs of arson were found on the scene, so it was labelled as a freak accident. Whatever had supposedly blocked the firefighters from getting inside had burned up, leaving no evidence of tampering.  _

_ Case closed on this one, luckily.  _

_ End recording. _


	3. Patchwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original PC: Marcelo Snowglow, lightfoot halfling/tiefling rogue/paladin  
> Entity: The Corruption  
> Warnings: Body horror (not in detail), bugs (excluding spiders)

_ Statement of Vanessa Hilton, regarding a strange event at her local tailor shop. Original statement given February 12, 1998. Audio recording by Victor Vallakovich, head archivist of the Arcana Institute, London. _

_ Statement begins. _

I've always been a fan of crafting, specifically embroidery and sewing. Some of my earliest memories are watching my mother making a quilt for my then-soon to be born baby brother, singing lullabies with what seemed like mountains of the most comfortable fabric I'd ever felt piled around her. When I was in high school my friends and I had made a giant quilt as a gift to the school our senior year. It was tradition that the graduating class give something to the school, sort of like leaving their mark as they passed on. Usually a mural is done, but our year decided to do something different, and I happened to be the one in charge of the making of the gift. It was really just natural progression that after I graduate I make a career out of my passion for creating.

I moved out as soon as I could, upgrading towns from Bend, Oregon to Portland. I had always felt a call to the vibrant city life that seemed so accepting of someone like me, still figuring out who she was. Much more accepting than a small, conservative place like Bend. I moved out and instantly got a job at a small, locally owned tailor shop that was just around the corner from my apartment.

The owner was a man named Marcelo Snowglow. He's very short, long brown hair and bright eyes. Would have been rather average looking, honestly, if it wasn't for the scars. The one everyone noticed first was the one traveling from the bottom of his eye down his cheek, past his neck and disappearing into his clothes. When I worked for him though, I eventually noticed many more. Sometimes I would see the hints of even more leading up his back. From what I could tell they must have covered his entire body. They were the type of scars that looked like railroad tracks, or... like you could use a zipper and undo them. 

Other than the scars, which were off putting at first but easy enough to get used to, he was possibly the perfect boss. I even considered him a friend, by the last time I saw him. He was the fatherly type, always making sure I had taken breaks to rest my hands and had eaten enough during lunch. Every last Friday of the month he would get the two of us, seeing as I was the only person he employed, a cake as celebration for making through the month. I have a really terrible fear of bugs, beetles and ants in particular, and he was always more than willing to clear out any unwanted "visitors", as he would call them, for me. I never saw what he did with them. He would just bring the nasty little things into his private room at the back of the store and I never saw them again. I didn't see much point in asking for the details I didn't want, and I made a point of never going in that room and risk finding out.

It was at his shop I met my wife, Alice. She kept coming in with the smallest things to be fixed soon after I began working, which she told me later on was just because she wanted to keep seeing me. We started dating a few months after meeting, and Marcelo was always supportive of us. He even offered Alice a job after a few months of us dating, which she declined because she is absolutely useless at anything the needs her to use her hands. She was studying to become a psychologist, and around the time of her graduation she had gotten a job offer from a family friend here in London. Once she got her degree she was going to move, and it wasn't something I was about to keep her from pursuing. We got married a few months before moving, and the only thing left to do after was to give Marcelo my two weeks notice and start packing.

I went in about an hour before the store was supposed to close, that night. I had the day off so it was supposed to be only Marcelo working, which is why it wasn't surprising that the store front was empty. The way our routine developed he works in the back most days and I handle the customers in the front, and with it being mostly dead on my day off, I assumed he was working on some orders in the back.

I had never thought of the backroom as creepy, before. There was one large work area filled with sewing machines and fabrics, a bunch of closets, a bathroom, and his private room. But that was always in daylight, and I had accidentally come after the winter sun had gone down. When the sun goes down... things you walk by and handle every day become unrecognizable. I had a terrible feeling when I went in the back and the only sliver of light, far in the back and almost shrouded by the tall shelves of fabric bolts, came from Marcelo's private room. I told myself I was being ridiculous, and at that point I was. There's nothing to be scared of in the dark, no boogeyman or lurking beast with fangs dripping blood. So I forced myself forward into the dark, towards that door.

I didn't knock. I don't know why I didn't knock. Maybe I was so comfortable there and Marcelo was always so relaxed with me, it just didn't cross my mind. So I took the handle without thinking... and opened the door.

A single light, a desk lamp on the far side of the room, was on, the only source of light. The single window painted over in thick black paint, enough to block any moonlight from even attempting to leak in. The walls of the room were painted the same black, with large picture frames containing pinned and dead butterflies in a single neat stripe going around the room. The only furniture in the room was a desk absolutely covered with dusty glass jars, the lamp, and a single, rickety wooden chair where Marcelo sat, facing away from the door. He was holding something, talking to it in the same quiet voice he used when he took "unwanted visitors" back here. 

He didn't notice me. I should have left right that moment, just quietly closed the door and given my two weeks notice the next time I went in for work. Instead I cleared my throat, thinking the sick feeling I was pushing down and ignoring was from my walk through the dark workroom, and said his name. He stiffened at my voice, and then slowly...  _ so _ slowly, turned to look at me.

I didn't scream the instant I saw what was happening to him. I didn't move, didn't speak, I didn't even breath. His scars... were  _ opened _ . But there was no blood, no flesh under his skin like any normal person. Instead it was just a roiling mass of black...  _ things _ . The same moving black mass, I realized as I stood frozen in that damned room, that covered every available inch of the walls and ceiling. Not paint. Just thousands... upon millions... of bugs. I only realized that's what they were when an ant the size of my pinky finger came out from under his shirt, antennae large enough that I could see them from the doorway, and crawled directly into the open scar on his cheek.

He looked at me, I couldn't do anything but look back at him as my blood turned into ice and I struggled to breath. And then he said one thing, so quiet I could barely hear it over the scuttling that I had become acutely aware surrounded me.

" **Leave** ."

That's all it took before I was bolting out the door, down the street without a single glance back. I went home, had a panic attack, and the next morning moved Alice and I's moving date up to the following week. I never went back to that shop. I never saw Marcelo again. 

I... I don't know if I want to.

_ Statement ends. _

_ I don't know what can be said about this statement. Vanessa Hilton refused to come make a follow-up statement when Rose asked her, and seeing as this took place almost two decades ago in America there's practically nothing that's in our domain we can do. _

_ We did look into a Marcelo Snowglow, at the very least. He was reported missing, along with three friends, after going out on some sort of expedition into the woods of British Columbia in the fall of 1973. No bodies were found, much to the dismay of his friends' families. With no relatives to speak of, Marcelo's case was labelled as unsolvable way faster than normal and practically forgotten. _

_ Whoever this Marcelo Mrs. Hilton knew is either an identity thief or... No. Nevermind. Ignore that. Identity thief is the only logical answer. _

_ End recording. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every time I think of the Corruption my brain chants "worm! corpse! worm! corpse!" and I just couldn't do that to Marcy


	4. Green Finch and Linnet Bird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original PC: Sven Daryun, half-elf assassin rogue  
> Entity: The End  
> Warnings: Child neglect, near death experiences, child abduction

Are you sure this is okay? I mean, it seems like usually employees don’t make statements.

_ If you have a statement, the Institute wants to hear it. I’m pretty sure Vasili herself has made at least a few statements with all the stories she likes to tell us, so I don’t see why you can’t. _

I guess so... God, this thing is so old. It looks like it’s about to fall apart at any second, why don’t you just use something more…

_ Up to date? _

Yeah, exactly. 

_ The statements sound best when they’re recorded on tape. When we first started sorting the files and putting them into the database, certain cases would short circuit the computers for some reason. Tapes are the only things that will hold the audio without some sort of distortion or breaking the recording device. _

That sounds like a case in itself. Maybe those files are haunted.

_ In a place like this, I wouldn’t doubt it. Anyways, are you ready? _

Should I just go for it?

_ Hold on, I have to do a thing. _

_ Statement of Rosavalda Durst, archival assistant at the Arcana Institute, on…? _

I guess... a near-death experience and the abduction of my brother. 

_ Statement taken direct from subject on October 5, 2018 by Victor Vallakovich, head archivist of the Arcana Institute.  _

_ Statement begins. _

Start now?

_ At the beginning, yeah. _

It… It happened when I was 10. In my family it was just me and my little brother, Thornboldt, and my parents, Elisabeth and Gustav Durst. My father worked as a motivational speaker, and my mother was his manager. I remember they would leave us with a nanny for days, sometimes even weeks on end as they travelled for work. I practically had to raise Thorn on my own once they started travelling again after he was old enough to not need Mom. Our usual nanny only cared about collecting a paycheck and doing as little work as possible, which my parents never found out. At least, if they  _ did _ know, they didn’t even try to change anything. I didn’t really realize it until after… everything, but they were bad parents.

A few days before Halloween, I was with Thorn in my room. Our parents had some guests over, which wasn’t  _ that  _ uncommon, and they never let us be downstairs when people came over. Their guests were always weird, and I think-- hope might be a better word-- they wanted to keep us away from all that. The guests always came after the sun had set, never during the day. I think I remember the one time they came over during the day they were under pure black umbrellas on a perfectly clear summer day. I mean, that’s weird, right?

_ Sounds like they were just goths _ .

I don’t think they were ‘just’ goths. Anyways, I was up in my room with Thorn, reading one of my books. I remember he was playing some game on his new GameBoy, laying on my floor while I was on my bed. We were just waiting to be able to go downstairs, like normal. But then slow, methodical footsteps approached the door. We heard a key insert the lock, and… We weren’t scared at first. Sometimes our parents did this, locked us in a room together while they did… something or other. It was only supposed to be for a few hours and then we would be let out for dinner or some shit. There was no reason to be alarmed.

The sun set and no one came to let us out, so I shared the snacks I had stashed under my bed with Thorn. We had chips and sour patch kids for dinner, whispering about how much trouble we would be in if our parents caught us and then devolving into giggles. Hours passed, no one let us out, so we went to bed. When I woke up the door was still locked. 

_ Why didn’t you go out the window? _

Iron bars over both our bedroom windows. Our parents were pretty paranoid about robbers or something coming in during the night and kidnapping us, so we had them to keep anything and everything out. Pretty terrible that it also kept  _ us _ in, though.

We shouted for our parents to let us out, thinking--  _ hoping-- _ that this was just a misunderstanding, that they had forgotten about it and we would all laugh about it over breakfast. But no one came and we shouted long enough that my voice went hoarse. We heard people talking, laughing every now and then, walking around downstairs. Someone even came upstairs at one point. We shouted, pleaded, but they walked past my door without any hesitation and ignored us. That’s the moment we realized: we were left to die.

Most of the next few days are still a blur, honestly, I don’t remember too many details. I remember a few days in going through waves of the most intense sickness I’d ever had to suffer, throwing up everything and then being stuck dry heaving in the corner. Thorn started the next day, but by that time I was so-- so weak. I couldn’t get out of my bed, even on the rare occasion I wanted to. I could barely lift my arm to hold him when he crawled in next to me. There were no tears at that point, no screaming for help, we just-- we just  _ gave up _ . We were  _ damned  _ to a limbo-like death by the people who were supposed to love and protect us forever.

_ Rose, you don’t have to-- _

No, I’m-- I’m fine. I want to finish this.

I think it was the 5th or 6th night when  _ he  _ appeared. He was whistling something, a slow and mournful dirge as he was suddenly standing over us. Thorn… Thorn was in my arms as we waited for death, curled together on my bed. He was so still I would have thought he had already passed if it wasn’t for his heartbeat, fast as a rabbit’s, and his short, sharp breaths. I was in about the same shape… I thought the figure was just a hallucination, the manifestation of my fantasy of being saved.

He didn’t say anything, didn’t even open his mouth. I looked into his gold eyes, and saw… he held death itself in his gaze. He had come for someone, I saw in his eyes, called to the house by some sort of friend. He wasn’t there for us specifically, but the Reaper isn’t picky and the Reaper is never full. He reached out a hand towards me, placing a hand right here. Right on my forehead. It was cold, like a corpse. Soft skin, I remember being surprised by that through the jumble of thoughts and cries and pleads that I was too weak to say.

But just as I was about to give up, to give myself over to the Reaper and end that terrible, torturous limbo… Thorn must have said something. He glared up at the Reaper, watery eyes defiant, and the Reaper… seemed taken back. He turned his gaze towards my little brother, something in those death-filled eyes warming the smallest bit but not smiling. Never smiling. He didn’t say anything to Thorn, at least not out loud.

I tried to stop him when he picked up my little brother. He was strong, strong enough to not even waver at picking up a 6 year old. I tried to hold him close and to not let him get taken because some part of me thought, at that moment, that us dying together would be better than Thorn... getting kidnapped, getting carried off to Hell, I don’t know. But I was too. Weak. 

The Reaper took him without issue, throwing him over his shoulder and heading towards the door. It was open, the night beyond the door frame being stabbed through by the muffled sounds of people screaming in terrible pain. He took Thorn without a glance back, those shadows swallowing the two of them up as they left me to die.

I just laid there. I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t even cry. All… The only thing I could do… was die.

But then I woke up.

It was days later, and I was in the hospital. The doctors explained to me that I had suffered from almost complete dehydration when I was found and rushed to the hospital. They had me on fluid recovery, bed rest, and observation for a long, long time. It was a while, at least a month, before I was even allowed to find out what happened, why exactly I was saved.

Apparently. an anonymous caller had reported hearing a group of people screaming bloody murder from our house-- they thought it was just a Halloween party gotten out of hand-- and the police had been dispatched to deal with the noise complaint. What they found was a massacre. My parents and their guests had all been killed in some sort of strange ritual. That’s what they thought had happened, anyways. Some wounds were self-inflicted but every killing blow was from a missing third party. There were no survivors of what’s called, nowadays, “The Death House”. No survivors, that is, except me.

I was never charged with the murders. When the police found me I had one foot inside the grave, I was so dehydrated. It was physically impossible I murder over a dozen full grown, healthy adults that same night. But that didn’t stop the theories, the paparazzi, or the news hounds. It felt like the one thing I was, the culmination of my very soul, was that I was the sole survivor of The Death House. 

As I grew up I fell into obscurity. Not that I minded, obviously. What could be said at that point? Someone murdered a bunch of people, and a floor above it a girl almost died of negligence. I didn’t want to be seen as a victim, to be only ever known for what I was forced to go through. It was brought up at every party, job interview, you name it. Eventually I found a job here. Vasili never asked me to talk about my past, my experience, so of course I took it. You and Irena and Markos and Izek, you’re all great to work with and _ none of you asked _ . So I stayed. And now I’m here.

_ Did they ever find… _

Thorn? No. No one believed me when I told them about the Reaper. They thought I had hallucinated it, which, to be fair, is a pretty reasonable assumption. I would have thought I’d imagined it too if I hadn’t looked into those death-filled eyes and just… knew that happened, that the Reaper is real and out there, somewhere. But Thorn eventually became a picture on a milk carton and I had to find a way to live again and leave all that behind. I still want to find him, of course I do. It’s just… it’s been 15 years. I can’t live stuck in that room forever.

_ Thank you, Rose. Do you want the rest of the day off, or…? _

I think... I’m going to get some coffee. Do you want anything?

_ I’m alright, thanks. _

Alright.

…

_ I don’t think there’s anything more I can say about this.  _

_ Statement ends. _


	5. Night Lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original PC: Bhaksaara the Caliginous, fallen aasimar lore bard  
> Entity: The Stranger  
> Warnings: Light body horror (barely)

_ Letter from John V. Jeanfils to Count Strahd von Zarovich of Transylvania, detailing a strange encounter he had under the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, London. Dated to April 23rd, 1823. Audio recording by Victor Vallakovich, head archivist of the Arcana Institute, London. _

_ Letter begins. _

Count Zarovich,

I hope this missive sees you well. It’s been a little less than a year since you last visited the Theatre Royal, and in that time a great number of renovations have occurred I’m sure you would be interested in witnessing for yourself. For instance--

_ There’s about two pages detailing what exactly was changed in 1822, nothing worth subjecting whoever listens to this to. Skipping that… Here, this is where it starts. _

Other than the renovations, I believe I remember once hearing that you were quite the collector of odd and peculiar stories. Something happened this most recent fortnight that I believe you’d be interested in hearing, and you are welcome to make this letter an addition to your little archive of horror.

Last Tuesday, the 15th of April, I had stayed late at the Theatre Royal in order to complete a few required props for the production currently in rehearsal,  _ The Cataract of the Ganges _ . The amount of detail that conniving inspector John Larpent expects in my props is utterly ridiculous, but Mr. Moncrieff, the playwright himself, refuses to see reason and holds me and my team to Mr. Larpent’s standards and then some. So, as Mr. Larpent’s record of forcing the theatrical property team to remake whatever he inspects has yet to be unbroken, I elected to stay in late and complete a few back-up items that I plan to conceal in my office when Larpent comes once again for an inspection.

I believe it was around 11 at night when I began to hear the faintest sound of music coming from somewhere within the theatre. Seeing as I should have been the only one still on the premises, I found this rather peculiar and left my workshop to go see who it could possibly be. The sound led me far down, deep into the storage room where many of my past projects were left to wither and decay over the years. I even came across the property used in 1812’s production of  _ Hamlet _ , the very one we became acquaintances at.

Following the sound, which I began by that time to recognize as a symphony I heard performed in Vienna that was composed by one of your statesmen, Jan Václav Voříšek, I found a door I had never seen before. It was partially hidden behind a large wooden cabinet, deceptively light for its size, and when I tried to open it, it swung open without even a squeak. I was greeted with a stairwell, completely cloaked in shadows save the smallest sliver of light far below me. I’ll admit, Count Zarovich, I considered leaving everything as it was and returning to my work. But I have never been one to let a secret lie.

Taking those stairs was quite the harrowing experience. Made of wood only the Lord knows how old, I ran into countless spider nests and I never allowed myself to make a sound. It was quite the feat of will, I will admit. I traveled down those stairs until I reached the light, an open archway that led into the largest performance hall I’ve seen to date. If I’m not mistaken, I believe the design of the archway matched descriptions I had once read of the original Theatre Royal’s masonwork from 1663. Inside, the pit where the audience would have once stood was a large sand pit, devoid of any beings but seeming to be recently stirred. Along the walls of the hall were tiered box seats, so filled with cobwebs it would have been impossible to see should a performance have taken place. I know not if you’ve seen a performance at Astley’s Amphitheatre, but should you any time soon, know the strange place I’m describing looked so incredibly alike to the circus that should you attend there, you might as well be stepping foot into this strange place beneath the Theatre Royal.

I could not see where the symphony was playing from, so I went only a few metres in to possibly investigate. There were no signs of life and most definitely no space large enough to house an entire orchestra. Instead, sitting across the way from the doorway was the strangest contraption I’d ever seen. A large metal horn sprouted from a wooden box about the size of a briefcase, on top of which a dark black disc was spinning endlessly. The music came from whatever this music contraption is, loud and clear enough to hear from my workshop in the theatre proper.

It was at this point I began to feel an increasing feeling of dread, as if I was intruding into a place not meant to be seen by… regular, mortal eyes. But when I turned to return back upstairs and return home for the night a man was standing in the archway I came from, blocking my escape with a large smile that only grew when I startled at this stranger’s sudden appearance.

He introduced himself as Bhaksaara, the Caliginous. He was the strangest looking fellow I had ever seen, and once you take into consideration the types that working with the theatre has brought me into contact to, that surely makes quite the statement. The sides of his hair were shorn close, while the mop of hair on top of his head was a vibrant light purple. Where one would normally have white in their eyes, his were a stark, almost pitch black. What remedies were required to dye them to that I can’t even begin to imagine, though I can’t believe will affect his long-term health positively. He wore clothes decades old, the same type I remember my own father wearing while I was growing. While it was strange, I hadn’t noticed anything truly upsetting or off-putting with this strange-looking man.

He inquired of my name and my occupation, to which I answered truthfully. When he found I am the propmaster to the Theatre Royal, I swear that unnerving smile grew into inhuman proportions. He welcomed me to his ‘abode’, taking me arm in arm and leading me away from the stairs, into the centre of the circus ring. He seemed rather… unpracticed in social niceties, which I can only suppose comes hand-in-hand with being in such a mindset that you claim a circus ring underneath a theatre as your home.

He began explaining his ‘dream’ of creating his own circus, “once that damn spider stops focusing on me so much”, in his own words. He painted a vivid picture of a troupe so wonderful even the heavens and earth stopped and watched them perform. At this time I was just nodding along, trying to find a proper place to let myself out of the conversation and flee without being impolite. But then he offered the strangest thing; he asked me to become the troupe’s first member. 

He said every circus needed a prop maker, and with my skill level I was more than qualified. It was at this point I began to excuse myself, taking my first steps towards leaving this strange being and encounter behind me and never thinking of it again. But his grip on my arm only tightened, and I swear I felt… extremely hard where there should have been soft flesh. As if his arm was made of porcelain or wood. He looked to me, faster than I’d ever seen anyone face someone, at such an unnatural angle and with a loud  _ pop _ that I was almost convinced of his neck breaking if it wasn’t for his unnatural, unmoving smile.

He asked me what was wrong, and I vaguely remember making up some excuse of being expected upstairs, even if the truth was the theatre was completely absent of life except for mine. He asked me to consider his offer, which I said I would the next day, once I had a clear head. I was so close to this Bhaksaara fellow that I could see right where his jawline met his ear… a small piece of flesh beginning to peel, revealing stark white porcelain underneath. 

I managed to get my arm free of whatever that thing was’ grip, stuttering out some excuse or another, before I practically flew back upstairs and left the theatre without a glance back. I returned the next day for work, but I haven’t stayed late since. I don’t know if I’d survive another encounter with that strange being, that Bhaksaara, the Caliginous. Looking back on that night, though, I can’t recall if I had closed the door that hid the underground circus ring from the rest of the world.

Well, should something happen to me, I suppose this might be my testament to what happened. I find myself assured that it will be kept in your capable hands, Count Zarovich.

_ Statement ends. Sort of. _

_ The letter continues on again, but nothing that has any bearing on this account. I sent Izek to investigate this supposed cavern underneath the Royal Theatre, but he wasn’t allowed enough free reign to do a thorough investigation. I probably should have sent Markos… _

_ There’s no account of what exactly happened to Jean V Jeanfils after this letter was sent to Count Strahd von Zarovich. Records of missing or murdered people from this early are practically impossible to come across, so I can’t even imagine that we’d find a hit on this particular case. _

_ The fact that this is from the early Archives, though… I can’t help but wonder if someone left this for me to find. The original statements in von Zarovich’s collection are kept under tight security by Vasili, due to their age and fragility. We can’t have our illustrious Arcana Institute founder’s personal collection ruined by wandering fingers, as she would say. _

_ A strange dead end, I’ll admit. At the very least the age of this statement will let me actually get some decent rest. No loose threads I could possibly pursue, so here’s hoping for a night free of relentless wondering. Now I should return this letter to Vasili before she finds them missing.  _

_ End recording. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey now marcy has a skin suit buddy, even if he's a few centuries older


	6. Drops in the Ocean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original PC: Basileus Vandenilis Damarath, triton druid, circle of spores  
> Entity: The Vast  
> Warnings: Simulated suicide

_ Statement of Anastasia Damarath, on her last encounter with and the subsequent disappearance of her brother. Original statement given May 26th, 2013. Audio recording by Victor Vallakovich, head archivist of the Arcana Institute, London. _

_ Statement begins. _

My brother  _ isn't _ a criminal. I know according to the media he's supposed to be some sort of deranged thief, but he's not! Everything that was being said about him-- that he attacked our father and somehow stole over a million pounds from him before disappearing a few months ago-- is fake. I mean,  _ obviously _ it's fake! Who carries a million pounds on their person? Not our father! Anyways... the reason I'm making this statement is because of what happened the last time I saw my brother.

Basileus was considered the runt of the family, being the youngest of the seven of us. We could be... meaner to him than what was warranted, but at the time it was just in good fun. At least, I thought it was. With everything that's happened, though, I wonder how much was fun and how much was...  _ more _ and I just didn't want to accept that it was. Looking back at how we treated him, I would have run away too. I wish I could go back and smack myself and every single one of our siblings, but I suppose it's too late to really matter. What's done is done, as much as I hate that sentiment.

He ran away the night of November 13th last year. No cameras on our property's gates saw him leaving, no car was let in or out in between the time he was last seen by Elias a few hours after dinner and when we think he went missing by the next morning. Sometimes we would go a few days without seeing him, what with us living in what is basically a mansion and him learning how to avoid us at a young age, so at first no one was worried when he didn’t show up for breakfast. We didn't realize that he wasn't on the grounds until our father called a family meeting and he never showed up. That never happens with  _ any _ of us, the punishment for skipping a family meeting is much worse than the relief of missing it. We waited five minutes after the time out father allotted for Basileus to show up, which is rare, but he never showed up. And that's what set our father off.

He didn't even tell us what was happening at first. Just started calling people and yelling at his phone, getting so red in the face I couldn’t help but think of him as a tomato. Isabelle had to ask him what was going on before he told us that, apparently, Basileus stole something from him and ran off. He never said what, just that it was expensive, powerful, and couldn't fall into anyone else's hands. We were told that if any of us saw him, we were to take whatever he had on him and return it immediately. He never even told us what he had taken, which immediately made me suspicious. Our father  _ had _ to be hiding something, but  _ what _ ?

The following months were marked by the search for Basileus by the police and anyone who wanted to earn half of the supposed million he stole. The media frenzy was just plain annoying, and the internet wouldn't stop posting these crackpot theories about how he could have gotten off the house's grounds without being seen. According to them he had found some secret tunnels underneath the home and was still living there, or had looped footage in our top of the line security cameras and made off on foot, soon to be lost in the crowds of London. I even read one that claimed he was a secret genius and managed to create a teleportation machine. 

No matter what people theorized or claimed of seeing, though, Basileus had just... disappeared. No credible accounts of seeing him were brought forward, and every time my father asked them what he was carrying and got the wrong answer-- it was always the wrong answer, he wasn't being truthful about what was taken-- he grew angrier and angrier. By the time the search was more or less called off months later, no one at home wanted to leave their rooms in case Father was stalking the halls in agitation. Things were suffocating, and I needed to get out of there.

I left for a few weeks long vacation to Tokyo. Of all the places I've been, it's always been my favorite city. The food, the culture, it's so much more fun than in London. It was a few days in that I decided to go sight-seeing, even if none of the tourist spots were new to me. I went to Harajuku and the Ghibli Museum, got a blessing at Meiji Jingu Shrine, and finally ended up at the Tokyo Tower at night. The sky deck, specifically. I've always loved the feeling of the wind pulling at my hair and chilling me to the bone, the look of the city lights from high above.

That night the deck was quiet. A few others, some couples and friend groups, were scattered around the circle, talking and such. I was standing at the railing, looking out over Tokyo and just... contemplating how fast things have gone to shit in such a relatively short time. And then someone stood next to me, silently. I looked over, and... there was Basileus.

His hair had grown longer in the months, into a windswept mullet that Isabelle absolutely would have mocked. The bags under his eyes were heavy and he looked underfed. An almost... desperation was in his eyes, something I had never seen before. His clothes were uneven and wrinkled, his backpack dirty, and it was easy to tell that being on the run was taking its toll on my baby brother.

What exactly we said in the beginning is a bit fuzzy, but I ended up ordering food for him and we sat at one of the deck tables. He didn't say anything until he was fed, but afterwards he thanked me and admitted he had  _ no money _ . Just like I thought! I told him the hunt was technically being called off officially, but how Father was still obsessed with finding him. He smiled at that, nodding like he expected it, but didn't bother to elaborate. I asked why he was running, what he could possibly have taken from our father to warrant a manhunt, and he pulled a thick, musty leather bound book from his backpack, almost throwing it on the table with a heavy  _ thud _ .

"I took this." Was all he said, pushing it towards me.

Everything these past few months had happened because of some old  _ book _ ? I couldn't believe it. I even recognized it from what little time I spent in Father's study; it was always placed in a glass case under lock and key, as if it was valuable in some way and not just a musty book he had found at a secondhand bookshop when I was little and the company was still getting started. I opened it, read the title: A Litany For The Deep, with an old wood etching of an almost hypnotic swirl of a whirlpool that made the feeling of a pit form in my stomach. No author, no printing company or date, only a sticker on the inside of the cover that read  _ Property of the library of Rudolf Van Richten _ . I stated my disbelief, and Basileus just shook his head at my words.

"You wouldn't understand, Anastasia. Father never really understood, either. He thinks he did, but he never saw the full truth.  _ I _ have, and that's why I should have this Van Richten. Not him."

I had asked him, “What are you talking about?”

He just shook his head again, longer hair moving strangely. It was like... I don't know, I don't know how to describe it. It just wasn't natural, too slow, as if the winds on the deck weren't able to touch it. I don't know why, but this small detail made my blood chill. It made me feel... I don't know... like there was something new that was just… inexplicably  _ wrong _ with my brother. He stood up and leaned in close, grabbing the book from my hands like a dragon protecting its hoard. And I can't forget what he said in that moment, low enough that I could barely hear him over the winds of the sky deck. 

"That we are  _ nothing _ , Anastasia. We are  _ so _ insignificant in the universe, hurtling through space on a dying rock. That's the truth of this book, the truth that Father is too scared to accept, the truth that I now know down to my core." He stepped away, speaking up as he backed up to the sky deck's railing, eyes never leaving my face as he smiled. "We are ants, Anastasia."

I could only watch as he clambered up on the railing, hugging the book, this 'Van Richten', to his chest. I couldn't move as he tilted back, still smiling, and said...

"We're just drops in the ocean."

And then he was gone.

I screamed the moment he fell, running out of my chair and over to the railing, tears already welling up as I thought I had just watched Basileus kill himself. And as I looked over the side, sure I was going to see my baby brother splattered across the sidewalk down below... there was nothing. No body, no book,  _ nothing _ . I began asking if anyone else had seen Basileus jump, but it seemed like no one else had been on that side of the tower or paying attention. Security came over to escort me down for making a scene, and I left in a daze. It just didn't make sense. 

I went about the rest of my vacation in a haze, I honestly don't remember anything about it. Then I went home, went about my life as usual. I couldn't tell anyone about that night, I mean, who would believe me? And then I saw something online about this place, this Arcana Institute, and what you do. Take statements of the abnormal and supernatural, and I didnt see what harm it would do. 

So that's it. My brother steals some strange book, disappears off the Tokyo Tower a few months later, and hasn't been seen since. Our father still hasn't given up on finding him, but I doubt he's going to find anything. And here I am, going on as best I can without a clue on what to do next. I just hope that my baby brother is safe, if he's still alive.

_ Statement ends. _

_ The manhunt for Basileus Vandenilis Damarath was a nationwide sensation for the few months it held the media’s attention. The high reward and the strange circumstances of the boy’s disappearance stirred everyone into a frenzy of searching that was ultimately fruitless. Every now and then news articles and photos from around the world will pop up online claiming to have spotted him, though no actual evidence has come to surface. _

_ Anastasia Damarath’s description of him does remind me of another account of a boy matching Basileus Damarath’s age and appearance. He was seen stealing another Van Richten from the museum in Los Angeles by the night guard, this one called The Anthologies of a Flame. The boy was chased onto the roof and jumped off rather than give himself up to arrest. No body was found, and no cameras caught him fleeing the scene. The guard gave his statement while on vacation, and refused to come over again for a follow-up interview.  _

_ The appearance of another Van Richten is troubling, I will admit. How many of these strange books are out there, and what happened to the man who supposedly collected them? What did that book, this Litany for the Deep, do to Mr. Damarath and his son? There are too many questions, and not enough answers… I’ll have to see what follow-ups I can do with members of the Damarath family, perhaps they can shed more light on it. _

_ End recording. _


	7. On Knife's Edge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original PC: Adrien Sadler, human ghostslayer bloodhunter/red draconic sorcerer  
> Entity: The Slaughter  
> Warnings:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA


	8. Day of Wrath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original PC: Mohtana Teden, minotaur monk of the soul knife  
> Entity: The Hunt  
> Warnings:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA


	9. Epilogue: Eldritch Roadtrip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original PC: All of them, everywhere, all the time  
> Entity: Luckily not All Of Them  
> Warnings: Attempted murder

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA


End file.
